Forty years ago, Electronics Magazine asked Intel co-founder Gordon Moore to write an article summarizing the state of the electronics industry. The article outlined what became known as Moore's Law, the observation that the number of transistors--tiny on/off switches that churn out electrical signals that get represented as 1s and 0s--on a chip can be doubled in a short period of time. Adopted as a yardstick by the tech industry, the concept is one of the reasons the industry evolved into a high-growth, but high-risk, affair. This FAQ explains the impact and consequences of the principles set down in the...